9 Tips To Maximize Your Stock Photo Sales

Any photographer who has experience with stock agencies will tell you that it is takes time and effort to see a return on your photos. You are competing with not only other photographers but also potentially anyone with a camera (or even a smart phone). So, if you want to make money from your photos through stock sales, then it takes more than just uploading a few photos online. Here are 9 tips to maximize your stock photo sales.

Look At Current Trends

Whatever branch of photography you are hoping to make sales in, you need to ensure that your photos are relevant and current to the trends in that industry. The only way to achieve this is through research and staying up-to-date with the current news in that sector. For example for a travel photographer, it could be that the next popular tourist destination is that far away place that has recently had a new direct flight from their country.

A medical photographer, might need to ensure they captured the new treatment available for a particular disease and a photo journalist will need to stay ahead of the news. Whatever genre of photography you are in, the key to success is to make sure you are as informed as you can be.

Be Creative And Unique

For your photos to really stand out and make you a decent income, they need to stand out from the crowd. The only way to do that is to capture something distinctive and more creative than what already exists. Unfortunately, we live in a world where digital photography is mainstream and just another shot of the Eiffel Tower probably isn’t going to sell very often or for very much. But how do you take new photos of things that have been photographed millions of times?

Research plays a big part and can help you see what already exists but ultimately the creativity comes from you and you need to train yourself to try and look at things in a completely new way. Do that and you’ll see a big improvement to your stock sales.

Take A Lot Of Photos

There’s no getting around it, photo stock sales is a numbers game and the more photos you have on sale the greater your chances of making sales from them. But it’s not just about numbers, quality is of absolute paramount as you’ll often find that one great photo can get much more sales than 20 mediocre ones. With experience you’ll learn to maximize each location or set to the full so rather than capturing one photo from that setup, you’ll capture 6 or 7 different ones. In essence, all you need are lots of photos all of which are great!

Consider Different Layouts

Whilst you’ll need a wide coverage of your chosen field of photography, you’ll also need to consider different layouts of the same photo for different uses. For example if you take a landscape shot, it will look great in horizontal format, but front covers of magazines and books are all portrait (vertical) so you’ll be missing out on those potential sales if your photo is only available in a landscape format.

But at the same time you also need to consider how a layout would actually work in conjunction with copy or in a magazine. For example if you put your point of interest in the middle of the photo (called a gutter in magazine layouts) then it becomes difficult to use as a double page spread. Of course some compositions won’t work in other ways and in those cases you just have to accept that. But the key is to make sure you cover off as many versions as you can so that you don’t miss potential sales.

Keyword Well

Keywords and captions are essential to how your photo will do once they are online. Simply put, if your photos are not keyworded well they will not sell. Keywords and captions are how photo buyers find your work so without it, it’s an impossible task.

If you work with a managed stock agency (one that edits your submissions and only chooses photos they would like represent), then they will usually do the majority of the keywording for you but if you work with an unmanaged agency such as Alamy, you will have to keyword and caption your photos yourself. Either way, don’t be lazy about the process as it will hurt that image’s sales potential.

The Right Agency

Making money from stock sales is also about finding the right agency to work with. Before you sign up to any of them, spend some time assessing their collections to see if it would be the right fit for your work. All agencies are different and cater for different needs and different types of clients so choose one that you feel will help sell your work. Beware that many agencies will want exclusivity on the photos that they accept for a minimum period of anywhere between 3 to 5 years, so take your time before committing to them. Working with an agency is a two-way process and you should be working with them and they with you to help you sell your work.

Get Releases

“Should I be getting model releases?” is one of the most common questions that I get asked. Usually (check the rules in your own country) you will not need a model release to sell a photograph of someone for editorial purposes. You will however need a model release if you want to sell that photo for commercial purposes (i.e. advertising a product or service). For example, without a model release, a newspaper article about that place could use a photo of someone, but a company wanting to sell its product can’t use it.

Whilst you can still make money from photos without a model release, having one increases their value 10-fold. In conclusion, if you have an opportunity to get a model release then do so.

Learn From Your Successes and Failures

One of the key processes that I go through every month is to look at my sales reports from that month and see which photos have sold and for what price. I keep a spreadsheet of all of my photo sales and from time to time evaluate which photos have done well and which ones haven’t. The reason for this is that when you begin to make sales from your photos you will start to notice certain trends in the type of photos that sell which you can then take on board for future shoots.

If you go through this process regularly, over time you will begin to see a bigger percentage of photos from that particular shoot selling well.

Be Yourself

As much as you need to be aware of current trends and needs of the market, you also need to stay true to who you are and what you enjoy photographing because ultimately your photos are a representation of you and your creativity. Take advice, be influenced and learn, but be yourself and don’t try to copy other people and their work.

Making a decent living from stock photography is tough and it hasn’t been helped over the last few years by falling prices and an over-saturation of the market but follow these tips and you can be on your way to maximizing your stock photo sales.

Photo credits: Kav Dadfar – All rights reserved. Dreamstime.